


sorry to bother you

by Anonymous



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Identity Issues, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Kerberos Mission, canon compliant up to this point, choking but like........not the sexy kind, fake shiro's a bitch but i also feel like....sorry for him, shiro clone theory? sign me up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-05
Updated: 2018-04-05
Packaged: 2019-04-18 06:51:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14207496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Hot sun, dry desert, Keith flying over the ground and laughing with reckless abandon as Shiro yelps and Matt screeches at them for getting dirt all over him. They sit on the roof and watch the stars. The launch, excitement and anxiety both, because they're making history. His arm is gone, it hurts. Hey, Keith says, fingertips gentle against the curve of his jaw, it's okay.These are the moments he remembers.(Shiro doesn't feel like himself.)





	sorry to bother you

**Author's Note:**

> me, watching the me from the timeline where they give us pre-kerberos flashbacks as early as s2, having a good time and enjoying life: must be nice
> 
> hell yeah im on board w the shiro clone theory who do u think i am. this is my take on what it must feel like to be a clone and not even realize, like. poor bitch.

 

One: it’s early in the morning, before the rest of the Garrison comes to life, and he’s blinking awake to the the very first rays of sun pouring through the blinds he forgot to close; it’s still, and calm, and there’s a head tucked into the crook of his arm, a leg thrown over his own, a head of dark hair against his neck, brushing his nose every time he breathes. Keith’s body is warm, and curls into him like they were made to fit together.

Two: the cherry blossom petals are bright against the calm of the water. He’s leaving, and he’ll miss it, but he’s not sad. He’s got a full scholarship to the academy of his dreams.

Three: hot sun, dry desert, Keith flying over the ground and laughing with reckless abandon as Shiro yelps and Matt screeches at him for getting dirt all over him. The air is uncomfortably warm, his shirt is soaking through with sweat, but Keith is having the time of his life.

Four: they sit on the dormitory roof and look at the stars. They dangle their legs over the edge of the empty little shack they found out in the Arizona desert and Keith traces the path of a shooting star with his finger in the air, like if he can just reach far enough he’ll be able to touch it. Shiro knows all of the constellations but he lets Keith tell him about them anyways. Keith knows all the moons and planets you can see with the naked eye, but he lets Shiro point them out anyways. They speak about their pasts and their futures, careful whispers in the dark, and Shiro never wants these night to end.

Five: the launch, excitement and anxiety curling up tight in his stomach as the countdown begins and the world looks on. They’re making history—

Six: Keith holding his gaze from across the crowded room. Keith hates big parties but it’s Shiro’s birthday, so he’s here at Shiro’s invite. Shiro is a little bit tipsy and a little bit in love and high enough on adrenaline and bad frosting that he traces the curve of Keith’s jaw and kisses him soft and sweet and Keith kisses back—

Seven: his arm is gone, it hurts—eight, nine, small flashes and long flashes and feelings he can’t grasp.

These are the moments he remembers.

He holds them close in the arena, in the cell. They keep him warm. They keep him human. He gets out and meets and alien princess and flies a giant robotic lion and they keep him sane, even when his life feels like a bad sci-fi show.

But he remembers: the phantom searing pain of his dead arm, the faceless masks, the long cloaks of the druids, the blood on his hands and his wrists and dripping down his arms until it’s all he’s covered in. He wakes up in the night with a scream lodged deep in his throat, just on the verge of escaping. He’s thrashing at the sheets wrapped around his limbs and trapping him. His heart races and he can’t catch his breath. Suddenly, he’s not alone.

 _Hey,_ Keith is saying quietly, softly, fingertips on his cheeks gentle like a breeze, _hey, hey, it’s fine, it’s fine, you’re fine, Shiro, it’s okay._

 _Keith_ , he gasps, reeling, reaching out blindly. Keith catches his hand, smaller fingers curling around his own. Shiro grasps his hand and holds it to his chest. Keith’s other hand traces the curve of his jaw, holding his head up with nothing but the tips of his fingers. They’re in Shiro’s room in the castle ship, he realizes vaguely.

 _Shiro,_ he says, searching his face, looking into his eyes. _I’m right here._

Shiro holds his gaze as steadily as he can. God, he thinks, he loves Keith’s eyes. He focuses on them, how they're blown wide and concerned and afraid, and he doesn’t know if it’s fear of him or for him but it almost sends him into a panic again because Keith isn’t supposed to be afraid of him, never Keith, never him, Keith is afraid of very few things and Shiro was never supposed to be one of them - "

 _I’m not,_ Keith breathes, and he sounds so sad that Shiro realizes he’s been speaking out loud, Shiro, _I’m not afraid of you._

 _You should be,_ he chokes out.

_I’m not. I never could be._

_You should be,_ Shiro says again, _I’ve done so much, I’ve killed so many people, you should be afraid, you should hate me._

Keith just shakes his head, stubborn as he always is. I _’m not afraid of you. I could never hate you. You did what you had to do to survive._

Shiro shakes his head helplessly. I should’ve let myself die, he almost says, but he couldn’t bear to see the look on Keith’s face if he did. Instead, he holds his warm hand tight against his heart and buries his head in the curve of Keith’s shoulder. Keith’s hand runs through his hair, nails light against the back of his head, the way he used to when the two of them would curl up on the couch in Shiro’s dorm and Shiro would fall asleep halfway through the movie. The wave of nostalgia hits Shiro so strongly he could cry.

Keith holds him tight and he presses right back. He’s ruined inside, all fucked up and messy, but Keith is still here.

 

When he dreams, he’s in the cell again. The cell is the worst place to be, because at least when he’s fighting he can do something, he can let out that twisted up mess inside of him instead of letting it build up and stew. He has nothing but his thoughts in here.

When he dreams in the cell, he’s back at the Garrison. He’s lounging in the library with Matt or sitting on the back of Keith’s bike, holding onto those slim hips for dear life because Keith loves nothing more than going fast fast fast through the mountain paths and the desert beyond them. He’s blinking awake to the sunlight streaming through the curtains and Keith asleep less than two feet away from him, curled on his side, one arm tucked underneath him and the other holding his place in the textbook he fell asleep reading. He looks peaceful when he sleeps, without the stress lines around his eyes that come from seeing too much in too few years. He looks like he belongs nowhere else but here, sleeping next to Shiro. The thought terrifies him, but it burrows into the sheets between them and settles in his chest as he falls back asleep.

He wakes up in the dark, propped against the metal wall, and there is no sunlight peeking through the windows, and there is no Keith. Keith is back down on earth, far away from here. Shiro should be grateful, he should be glad his baby is nowhere near this hellhole, but the Galra tore something open inside of him when they took his arm and he can’t help but think selfish thoughts. He doesn’t wish Keith was here, but he wraps up his memories like they’re presents and tucks them away for only him to see. Sometimes he forgets, and he has to search for them in the dark. The details are fuzzy but the feelings are there. He can see Keith sleeping perfectly in his mind. He can hear Keith telling him _if you give up once, you’ll never stop;_ he can hear Keith telling him _don’t find any proof of alien life before I get up there, save some fame for the rest of us._

He thinks he would say sorry, if he could. He discovered worlds more than proof, and, thank whatever god Shiro doesn’t know if there is anymore, Keith wasn’t here to see any of it.

But he is here now, with fingertips on the curve of his jaw when he’s calming him down and a hand on his shoulder or a bump of his elbow to ground him. He never presses more than that. He never tries to kiss him, to slide against him like he used to, chin propped on Shiro’s shoulder. Maybe he’s trying to give Shiro time and space to work things out with himself, letting Shiro come to him. Maybe, Shiro thinks sometimes in the quiet of his bed, the nights when Keith sleeps in his own room or doesn’t slip in until Shiro is asleep, he just doesn’t like Shiro like that anymore. He sees the worst sides of him, the sides that prove he shouldn’t be the leader of something so important. Maybe he doesn’t like what he sees.

 _(I was just afraid,_ Keith tells him, trembling against Shiro’s hands as he helps him pull off the glowing blade of marmora suit; it’s tight against his skin, Keith is too tired to figure out how to get it off himself, and there’s nobody else he feels comfortable asking for help, _that you’d hate me. That you hate me, now._

“Keith,” he says, rummaging around for a makeshift bandage for the wound on his shoulder; they’ll need to get him to the med bay, but not now, “I could never hate you.”

“But I’m—the galra hurt you. They hurt the universe, everything, and I’m. I just. I don’t understand how you can just—how you can even like what you see anymore.”

He helps Keith slip the rest of the suit down and off his legs. Keith doesn’t flinch, just relaxes, still under Shiro’s hands. Shiro wants to tell him that there’s no way he wouldn’t like any part of Keith. He knew him back when he was closed off and hell bent on never letting anybody in. He knew him back when holding hands made him skittish and he kissed him like he was afraid Shiro would change his mind.

“You get to choose who you are,” he says instead, “Where you come from doesn’t define you. You’re still Keith. That hasn’t changed.”

“Everything’s changed,” Keith says, but he leans into Shiro’s touch anyways. “Everything’s changed.”)

 

Everything’s changed. He barely makes it out a second time, almost dies starving and suffocating in a pod in the middle of nowhere. The team dynamics have changed—they’re floundering. Keith sits in Shiro’s chair and it’s too big for him, maybe, or he’s too unsure of himself to make it fit.

( _I know what you’re capable of,_ he says, half-desperate to have somebody take the reins, and he knows Keith is up to the task.)

He doesn’t understand how he could’ve left Keith in charge of this. It’s—important, it’s not a game, it’s not a simulation. Keith isn’t making the right calls. And Shiro—he still wants to be the leader. He’s the right leader for this team; they trust him, trust his word over Keith’s, and if that’s true than he has a duty to lead them right. Right?

Keith says _I wasn’t good enough to take your place, I told you I wouldn’t be. You said I had potential, but…_

 _You tried your best,_ Shiro says, _you just weren’t ready yet._ The words taste like ashes in his mouth, uncomfortable and all wrong, but Keith takes them anyways. (He would take anything Shiro ever gave him and he would believe it completely.)

He can feel Keith pulling away, fingertips tracing his jaw when he ties Shiro’s hair back to help him cut it and disappearing into nothing when Shiro tells him off and Shiro doesn’t push him away, but he knows he doesn’t welcome him in, either. There’s just. Not time.

He remembers: Keith’s hand shaking in his own, telling Shiro his doubts in the dark—can’t reconcile the two worldviews in his blood (the mission is more important than the individual, he doesn’t want to leave anyone behind) and is he even good enough to be a Blade?—about the missions he’s going on again and again now and the sword he throws around like it’s never bothered him before.

Keith leaves by the end of the month. Shiro tries to find it in him to be sorry.

 

He remembers feeling different than he does now. His orders were followed more readily before, Keith didn’t look at him so sad before, he never had these headaches before—but, before _what?_ Before Kerberos? Before the arena? Before his second escape?

He just knows he wasn’t always like this. He couldn't have been. He makes decisions because he is the leader of Voltron, and instead of being listened to, they argue, they look at him wide-eyed and wary when he reminds them that _he’s_ making this decision because, again, he is the leader. He knows what’s best. They’ve listened to him before, followed him into battle and followed Keith because he asked them to.

Keith followed him because. Because that’s what did—does. Keith is gone, now. He remembers looking up at the stars and saying _you’ll be my co-pilot, next time._ He remembers Keith telling him that everyone leaves, eventually. Shiro told him that he never would, and that if he did, he would always come back. Keith is the one who left, this time. A hypocrite, maybe, if Shiro has time to think about it. His head always hurts.

He remembers, trekking through the alien snow, the flower petals on the water. He does not remember where the water was. Everyone has a hard time remembering the details of childhood memories, though. Shiro feels old enough to be a grandfather, getting the dates of his favorite escapades mixed up.

He sees Keith talking with Lotor, the day they’re all trying to figure out what the hell to do with him. Well, he sees Lotor talking to Keith. The prince’s wrists are cuffed, and he’s looking as calm and docile as a person physically can. Keith is tense, arms folded and one hand inches away from his knife, but he’s listening. Shiro catches his eye, raises an eyebrow in question. _It’s fine,_ Keith says with his nod, and a wry smile. Shiro nods back, and looks away.

Later, when Shiro’s on watch in the schedule they set up to keep an eye on the prince, Lotor tells him: _that little blade of yours is a brave one. It turns out that if I hadn’t stepped in, none of you would be any worse for wear._

Shiro doesn’t ask him what he means—he barely trusts him for a grain of salt, at this point—and Lotor doesn’t elaborate.

The words stay with him, long after Keith leaves and long after they (he) lets Lotor wander freely about the castle. For a long time after the Naxzela incident, Matt looks at him like he has something to say. Everyone is looking at him like that lately, though, so Shiro ignores it.

_That little blade of yours is a brave one._

He knows that something must have happened with Keith. If Keith hasn’t told him, he reasons to himself, the button to call the Blade’s direct line inches from his finger, it can’t be that important. If he doesn’t want him to know, it must not matter that much.

(it takes more than one question of _are you okay? is there something wrong?_ for Keith to open up about a problem; you have to make it known that you’re willing to listen to what he has to say, or he won’t bother trying)

Shiro doesn't feel like himself.

 

Keith shows up unannounced one day, after Lotor crowns himself emperor and all of that drama. He thinks that Lance might have asked for him, but he isn’t sure. He seems quietly happy to see everyone again, and quietly longing to be in a pilot’s seat again as he watches the paladins do their thing from the bride of the castle.

“Do you think we should be attacking outright?” Keith asks from Shiro’s side.

“ _You’re_ suddenly all about stealth?” Shiro asks, and maybe it was meant to be a lighter kind of teasing, but it comes out as something else.

Keith flushes a bit, but continues, “I’ve been—picking some stuff up, from the other Blades. I don’t know. This doesn’t—it doesn’t seem like Voltron, to push so hard.”

“Pushing hard is how you yield results.”

“But not with people. Not with people we want on our side. I thought Lotor was the emperor now, shouldn’t we be trying to make peace instead of causing more destruction?”

His head just hurts and there’s too much going on and Keith is still talking, that pitched concern in his voice that sets Shiro’s teeth on edge, and he says, “There’s no _we_ in this situation. You gave up your right to make decisions for the team when you left. You’re not the leader anymore. You don’t have a place here.”  
  
The surprise-hurt-confusion in Keith’s eyes tugs at something inside him, but he ignores it. He remembers the Trials of Marmora, and the horrible hologram Keith saw, the way his voice was cold and hard and the way Keith looked when he spoke, the same way Keith looks at him now. The same way Shiro hears himself speak. He ignores that, too.

He finds Keith in the hangar later—in the Black Lion, talking to her. Shiro can feel her vaguely, through the static in his head and the only way he can anymore, and he knows that she let him in. That he could fly her away if he wanted to. The thought makes something in Shiro cold.

“Keith?” He calls before he can stop himself. He hears Keith’s quiet voice cut off, like if he pretends he’s not here Shiro will forget. He taps down the soft fondness he feels in his chest and focuses on the facts. “I know you’re in there.”

Keith pokes his head out, eyes down, looking ashamed. It shouldn’t make him feel proud of himself, making Keith look that way, but it does. He taps down the bit of fear in his chest, too. “Shiro,” he says, “hey.”

“What’re you doing in the Black Lion?”

“I just,” he seems to flounder, which can’t mean anything good, “I was just trying to catch up on everything you guys did when I was—when I was gone.”

“You could’ve just asked someone.”

“Everyone’s busy, I just thought—”

“You’re lying to me,” he says; his headaches are always worse when Keith is around, and the static in his head is getting stronger and stronger and Keith is still looking at him like he’s afraid of him, like he’s concerned, like this is a side of him he’s never seen. Which is ridiculous, because Keith has seen all the worst sides of him before and took them in stride so why is he suddenly acting like he doesn’t know him? It’s annoying.

“I’m not,” Keith lies; he’s always been terrible at lying, and they both know it. And then, “Shiro,” like a warning when Shiro stalks closer.

“You’re trying to take her from me,” he says, his headache pounding against his skull, “You’re trying to take Black from me. Voltron from me.”

“No,” Keith says frantically, back hitting the wall behind him, “No, Shiro, I would never—”

“You’re not the leader anymore, Shiro interrupts; feeling vindictive and spiteful and wild, “You gave that up.”

“You _wanted_ me to—”

“You _left,_ you’re not a paladin anymore, you don’t have the right—”

There is a scuffle, a struggle, Shiro thinks he blacks out for a moment and when he comes to, his prosthetic is wrapped tight around Keith’s neck and Keith’s feet aren’t touching the floor. His little hands are clawing at Shiro’s wrist.

“Shiro,” he’s saying. His voice is panicked, pretty eyes blown wide and terrified. “Shiro. I’m sorry, Shiro, please."

It takes Shiro a moment to breathe in the scene, to connect the dots in his head--follow the hand around Keith’s neck to his own arm.

“Keith,” he says, “oh my god,” but he just can’t seem to stop, to let go, to uncurl his fingers and let Keith breathe and he doesn't know why. He’s not himself, he’s not in control—the realization hits him at the same time Keith kicks at him weakly, and it takes all of the strength from him. His arm goes limp. Keith sinks to the floor, gasping for breath. Somebody yells at them from somewhere far away.

His hand doesn’t feel like his own hand and his head is spinning, reeling, and his eyes burn beneath his eyelids, nothing like any flashback or nightmare has ever felt before. There is something very wrong with him.

 

He gasps himself awake to the white ceiling of his own room, in the castle. The pounding in his head has reduced to a dull ache. His arm lies limp by his side, even when he tries to move it. Deactivated. Why is it deactivated? Why is it—?

 _Hey,_ Keith is saying, carefully, softly, _Shiro, hey, it’s fine. You’re okay_ , fingertips gentle against the skin of his cheek, and Shiro hopes desperately that the feeling of his hand around Keith’s throat was just a dream, _it’s okay. It’s okay._

 _It’s not,_ Shiro says, but he reaches out blindly anyways, because he no longer trusts himself to see. Keith grasps his hand, still, and holds it to his chest.

 _I’m not afraid of you,_ he says, because he won’t insist it’s okay because Keith has always hated lying.

 _You should be,_ Shiro tells him, his stomach dropping; he feels sick, tracing the dark, ugly bruises on Keith’s neck, thick fingerprints pressed under his jaw. He’s amazed the others even let Keith anywhere near him, and the guilt is enough to make him tear up. He’s done so so much, but this is the breaking point. _God, you should be._

Keith just shakes his head, stubborn as he always is. _I’m not. We’ll figure this out._

 _Okay,_ Shiro says, leaning into Keith’s careful touches, because he can’t think to say anything else. Things will be okay. They’ll figure this out, like they figure everything out together.

(He ignores the part of him, somewhere deep inside, telling him that he doesn’t want to find out.)

 

**Author's Note:**

> these last few weeks have been rough and the next few will be even rougher, comment to save a life


End file.
